Rose Hanako Fujikawa Uyematsu
March 2, 1935 – June 3rd, 2020
Rose Hanako Fujikawa Uyematsu passed away on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020 at her home in Anaheim Hills, California.
Rose was born on March 2, 1935 in Madera, California to parents Kiyozuchi and Yaye Fujikawa. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan in the early 1900’s and they worked as farm laborers in Madera, California. Rose was the youngest of 11 children. The family moved from Madera to Wilmington, California when Rose was one years old. The family operated a farm and sold their produce from their vegetable stand on San Pedro Street in Los Angeles.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by the Empire of Japan, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which evicted and forced 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry out of the west coast states of California, Oregon, Washington, and parts of Arizona during WWII. Rose’s family was incarcerated at the Jerome concentration camp and eventually moved to the Tule Lake camp. With only what they could carry, the majority, U.S. Citizens, were confined from 1942 – 1945 behind barbed wire and guard towers. When the war with Japan was coming to an end, Rose’s family relocated to Brigham City, Utah where Rose attended Central Grammar School and graduated from Box Elder High School. She then enrolled at Henagar Secretarial College in Salt Lake City and graduated in 1954.
Rose returned to California and was hired as a secretary by the State of California Employment/Disability Department. She then met Norio Uyematsu and they married in 1957. With the birth of 3 boys, she decided to retire from the State of California to raise the family. Once the boys were older, she went back to work as a secretary, for Autonetics, where she retired after 20 years of service and then worked for the Professional Golfers Association of Southern California in 1995. Rose was actively involved with the Kazuo Masuda Memorial Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3670, the South-East Youth Organization, and other civic organizations.
Rose is survived by her husband of 63 years Norio and her three boys, Michael, Ronald, and Thomas, along with eleven grandchildren, two great children and many nieces and nephews. She is preceded in death by her mother, Yaye, father, Kiyozuchi, sisters, Helen Masaki, Doris Okamura, June Wada, Edith Yamasaki, Martha Hirai, and Jeanne Nagao, and brothers, Sam Fujikawa, George Fujikawa, Frank Fujikawa, and Harry Fujikawa.
A Celebration of Life will be conducted at a later date.